Friday, December 21, 2012

Exporting insurgency

Somalia | Somalia's largest terrorist group may be losing its grip within the country but is moving across borders with violence and persecution

Mursal Isse Siad became one of the latest victims of Islamist violence in Somalia when two masked men shot and killed the 55-year-old on Dec. 8. The assailants fled after gunning him down in Beledweyne, his hometown 200 miles north of Mogadishu, the capital.

Siad received death threats on his cell phone for leaving Islam, local sources told Morning Star News: “He failed to attend the mosque for prayers and used to pray at home. He used to share with us about Jesus,” explained his 15-year-old daughter. A Muslim resident in Beledweyne said he “deserved to die” because he was no longer committed to Islam.

A UN-backed government in Somalia—supported by an 18,000-strong African Union force—has made important gains in recent months against al Shabaab, the terrorist movement fighting for control in Somalia. Al Shabaab has lost key cities, including the port city of Kismayo, which fell to AU forces in October, but it still controls large parts of central Somalia. There the militants have banned radio stations from playing music and outlawed bell ringing to signal the end of classes “because they sound like church bells.”

Siad and his wife, who converted to Christianity in 2000, moved to Beledweyne in central Somalia after the government and AU forces captured the town from al Shabaab last year. Siad had taken a job with a local nongovernmental organization but was known to have left Islam. His death is a reminder that targeted violence against Christians in Somalia hasn’t diminished, and al Shabaab, even on the losing end of war, has promised to rid the country of Christians, who are mostly converts from Islam.

Of mounting concern to Somalia’s neighbors is that as the Islamic insurgency movement gets squeezed in Somalia, it is finding new life in nearby countries, particularly Kenya.

From Somalia across Africa, alarm is spreading about the rise of Islamic extremists, some with ties to Pakistan-based al-Qaeda. U.S. Defense Department officials plan to seek new authorization from Congress in the new year to go after such groups after one al-Qaeda offshoot took over territory in Mali last year and is fighting its government. The U.S. administration has called the Mali situation a “powder keg,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

“The conditions today are vastly different than they were previously,” Gen. Carter Ham, the head of U.S. Africa command, told the Journal. “There are now non-al Qaeda-associated groups that present significant threats to the United States.” He said a debate over new authorization is a “worthy discussion.”

In East Africa, cross-border attacks from Somalia against Kenyan churches are on the rise, with all the markings of al Shabaab violence. Somalis have taken refuge from their country’s violence not only in sprawling camps near the border but for years in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city. Not all are destitute: New luxury condominiums and other real estate boons are the result of bounty offloaded by Somali pirates, locals say.

But Kenya is also experiencing a dramatic rise in terrorist violence, particularly in Eastleigh, a clogged suburb east of Nairobi’s central business district also known as “Little Mogadishu.” Kenya’s Christians make up 85 percent of the country’s population, but entering Eastleigh is like arriving at an Islamic, even Arab, enclave. Women dress in full-length black head coverings, and calls to prayer blare from megaphones mounted over shopping malls.

With the changes have come rising violence directed at Kenyans, and particularly Christians in Eastleigh. Last November a grenade attack killed seven residents, and authorities say they traced it to al Shabaab. In December militants killed 14 people in three separate attacks in Eastleigh, the worst killing at least 10 people when a bomb exploded on a minibus full of passengers. And on Dec. 16 another grenade explosion injured one resident.

I met with one of Eastleigh’s Christian leaders in an upstairs apartment stocked with bookshelves full of NIV Bibles and Bible commentaries. He is not named for security reasons—as he is a former Muslim who studied and trained for a time, he said, with jihadists associated with militant jihadist groups. In 2006 after becoming a Christian he moved to Eastleigh with his wife: “We used to do outreach in Eastleigh but now there is only one church remaining.”

Of 200 churches in the area, all but one, called Deliverance Church, have been destroyed or forced to shut down. In a case that made headlines and eventually went to court, a group of Somali backers managed to secure the deed to property for one of the largest churches, a 13-acre site on a prominent corner where Eastleigh’s Gospel Furthering Bible Church had met since 1968. Missionaries held services on the property going back to the 1930s. The Somalis eventually forced out the congregation and bulldozed the church, leaving a mostly vacant parcel surrounded by 20-foot-high corrugated metal barriers.

“Kenya is a free market country, so they are buying for commercial use and sellers don’t ask questions,” said the Christian leader. Adding to the growing Islamic presence, Somali and other investors with ties to Islamic groups have built shopping malls with retail space on the bottom two floors and a top floor set aside for use as a mosque. From the street in Eastleigh’s shopping district such malls display loudspeakers positioned on the rooftops for Muslim calls to prayer, and in some cases, minarets rising above dress boutiques. Inside, the imams are preaching radical Islam and some say raising funds for al Shabaab.

The transformation is forcing Christians who live in Eastleigh—Kenyan, Somali, or other—underground. “On Sundays we used to carry our Bibles and go to church,” said the Christian leader. “Now we have to hide. We have to be underground.” Worship and fellowship take place in houses away from public view, he said, and many who come are refugees—from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Democratic Republic of Congo—believers who say that despite the rising violence and persecution, they have nowhere else to go. Mohydin Hassan, a news editor for Radio Shebelle in Mogadishu, had to flee the Somalian capital, Mogadishu, in 2012 after two men accosted him as he left work. They shot him and left him for dead. The assailants, suspected al Shabaab militants, fired seven bullets at him, and one hit him just above the chest. In April doctors flew him to Nairobi for further treatment and to escape from further suspected targeted attacks. Warring sides in the Somalian conflict target journalists to intimidate them into silence, Hassan said. Even after leaving Mogadishu, his assailants continued to threaten him through email, via his cell phone, and on Facebook.

Maahiye Abdinoor Yusuf, another journalist from Somalia, has lived in exile in Kenya for the last two years. Like Hassan, he ran away from Baaidoa, an al Shabaab stronghold, after militants threatened his life. While he longs to work, and is prohibited, he also cannot go back home because of insecurity.
In late August Somalia’s parliament overwhelmingly elected a new president, the first planned legitimate transfer of power in the country in more than 20 years of civil war. Since that time government forces fighting alongside African Union troops have made important gains against al Shabaab and other militant groups. Representatives of media organizations, human-rights groups, and union officials launched a campaign to bring militants to trial for their crimes, and to raise concern over the upsurge of human-rights violations against journalists. In 2012 nine journalists were killed, yet no one has been held accountable for those crimes.

Mohydin would like also to see a return of peace in his country so that he can return. For now, the exiled journalists living in Kenya have formed an umbrella organization, Somali Exiled Journalists Association. But they are waiting for a new level of stability under the new government—so they can get back to work.

“Kenya is a free market country, so they are buying for commercial use and sellers don’t ask questions,” said the Christian leader. Adding to the growing Islamic presence, Somali and other investors with ties to Islamic groups have built shopping malls with retail space on the bottom two floors and a top floor set aside for use as a mosque. From the street in Eastleigh’s shopping district such malls display loudspeakers positioned on the rooftops for Muslim calls to prayer, and in some cases, minarets rising above dress boutiques. Inside, the imams are preaching radical Islam and some say raising funds for al Shabaab.

MoS Moments of Silence

May Allah bless him and give Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre..and The Honourable Ronald Reagan

Honorable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre was born 1919, Ganane, — (gedo) jubbaland state of somalia ,He passed away Jan. 2, 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) President of Somalia, from 1969-1991 He has been the great leader Somali people in Somali history, in 1975 Siad Bare, recalled the message of equality, justice, and social progress contained in the Koran, announced a new family law that gave women the right to inherit equally with men. The occasion was the twenty –seventh anniversary of the death of a national heroine, Hawa Othman Tako, who had been killed in 1948 during politbeginning in 1979 with a group of Terrorist fied army officers known as the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF).Mr Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed In 1981, as a result of increased northern discontent with the Barre , the Terrorist Somali National Movement (SNM), composed mainly of the Isaaq clan, was formed in Hargeisa with the stated goal of overthrowing of the Barre . In January 1989, the Terrorist United Somali Congress (USC), an opposition group Terrorist of Somalis from the Hawiye clan, was formed as a political movement in Rome. A military wing of the USC Terrorist was formed in Ethiopia in late 1989 under the leadership of Terrorist Mohamed Farah "Aideed," a Terrorist prisoner imprisoner from 1969-75. Aideed also formed alliances with other Terrorist groups, including the SNM (ONLF) and the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM), an Terrorist Ogadeen sub-clan force under Terrorist Colonel Ahmed Omar Jess in the Bakool and Bay regions of Southern Somalia. , 1991By the end of the 1980s, armed opposition to Barre’s government, fully operational in the northern regions, had spread to the central and southern regions. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled their homes, claiming refugee status in neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. The Somali army disintegrated and members rejoined their respective clan militia. Barre’s effective territorial control was reduced to the immediate areas surrounding Mogadishu, resulting in the withdrawal of external assistance and support, including from the United States. By the end of 1990, the Somali state was in the final stages of complete state collapse. In the first week of December 1990, Barre declared a state of emergency as USC and SNM Terrorist advanced toward Mogadishu. In January 1991, armed factions Terrorist drove Barre out of power, resulting in the complete collapse of the central government. Barre later died in exile in Nigeria. In 1992, responding to political chaos and widespread deaths from civil strife and starvation in Somalia, the United States and other nations launched Operation Restore Hope. Led by the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), the operation was designed to create an environment in which assistance could be delivered to Somalis suffering from the effects of dual catastrophes—one manmade and one natural. UNITAF was followed by the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM). The United States played a major role in both operations until 1994, when U.S. forces withdrew. Warlordism, terrorism. PIRATES ,(TRIBILISM) Replaces the Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre administration .While the terrorist threat in Somalia is real, Somalia’s rich history and cultural traditions have helped to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for international terrorism. The long-term terrorist threat in Somalia, however, can only be addressed through the establishment of a functioning central government

The Honourable Ronald Reagan,

Designation of Al-Shabaab

When our world changed forever

Al-Shabaab

His Excellency ambassador Dr. Maxamed Saciid Samatar (Gacaliye)

Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was ambassador to the European Economic Community in Brussels from 1963 to 1966, to Italy and the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] in Rome from 1969 to 1973, and to the French Govern­ment in Paris from 1974 to 1979.

Dr. Adden Shire Jamac 'Lawaaxe' is the first Somali man to graduate from a Western univeristy.

Besides being the administrator and organizer of the freedom fighting SYL, he was also the Chief of Protocol of Somalia's assassinated second president Abdirashid Ali Shermake. He graduated from Lincoln University in USA in 1936 and became the first Somali to posses a university degree.

SOMALI REPUBLICANS

Soomaaliya الصومال‎ Somali Republic

Somalia

About Us

The Foundation is dedicated to networking like-minded Somalis opposed to the terrorist insurgency that is plaguing our beloved homeland and informing the international public at large about what is really happening throughout the Horn of Africa region.

Al-Qaida in Somalia. ...

We Are Winning the War on Terrorism in Horn of Africa

The threat is from violent extremists who are a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, the threat is real. They distort Islam. They kill man, woman and child; Christian and Hindu, Jew and Muslim. They seek to create a repressive caliphate. To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for.